Waymo released new safety data claiming its autonomous vehicles caused 82% fewer injury-related crashes and 95% fewer serious-injury crashes than human drivers, based on 271 million driverless miles through June across San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta and Phoenix. The company also reported reductions in injury crashes involving pedestrians (93%), cyclists (86%) and motorcyclists (82%), and shared video of near-misses it says its system avoided.
A group of software researchers has published an essay arguing that modern computing tools trap users as passive consumers rather than letting them adapt software to their needs. Drawing on decades of research and commercial products, plus their own prototype testing, they propose 'malleable software'—systems users can reshape at the point of use instead of relying on distant engineering teams.
Skybound Entertainment's Energon Universe comic imprint, which includes Transformers alongside other franchise tie-ins, has reported strong sales, with the Transformers title requiring repeated reprints to meet demand. Other titles in the shared universe have not matched that level of reprint activity.
A tech commentary compares foldable phone screen sizes to compact tablets, noting devices like the Pixel 11 Pro Fold and Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra offer displays close in size to the iPad Mini's 8.3-inch screen. The piece argues that folding phones combine smartphone portability with tablet-like screen space, and can eliminate the need for a separate cellular data plan that many tablets require.
Lofi Cities is a free website at loficities.com that displays animated pixel-art nighttime scenes of 16 cities, including Paris, Tokyo and New York, paired with ambient sounds and lofi music generated live in the browser using the Web Audio API rather than samples. Users can switch musical vibes, toggle weather and seasons, and set the app to auto-tour cities based on time of day, all without downloads, accounts or pop-ups.
A developer completed a project demonstrating high-quality digital audio playback through the ZX Spectrum's basic 1-bit beeper speaker, present on every model of the machine. The technique was verified working on original 48K hardware, a modern Omni 128 clone, and multiple emulators including Fuse, EightyOne, Zesarux, Spectaculator and Clock Signal.
BYD Executive Vice President Stella Li said the company is in a "leading position" on solid-state battery technology and will release its first vehicle using the tech in 2027. This aligns with earlier statements from BYD battery subsidiary FinDreams, which said mass production of sulfide-based solid-state batteries would follow around 2030, with lithium iron phosphate batteries still used alongside them in lower-tier models.
An entrepreneur in the window film industry writes that businesses selling complex or unfamiliar products should prioritize educating customers over pushing for a sale. He argues buyers often can't distinguish between products like solar control, security, privacy or decorative window film, and need to understand category differences before evaluating any proposal. He extends the argument to other technical industries such as technology, finance, healthcare and specialty contracting, where customers face similar knowledge gaps.
An analysis of foldable smartphones outlines persistent drawbacks including hinge durability, scratch-prone displays, added bulk and weight, weaker cameras, and apps that don't yet scale well across screens. It also notes that repairs are costly, with iFixit rating current foldables as effectively unrepairable, making insurance advisable given theft risk.
A Verge editor describes years of play in Out of the Park Baseball, a text-and-stats-heavy simulation covering current and historical MLB rosters, minor leagues, the KBO League, and the World Baseball Classic. He recounts building an alternate-universe New York Mets roster, including signing Juan Soto and turning players like Brandon Nimmo and Kodai Senga into stars in the simulation.
Fireworks Research released Ember-1, a specialized model built on Kimi K3 that matches its quality while using 40% fewer tokens. The company says it trained the model to reason more efficiently rather than simply reducing reasoning effort, using more than 50 training experiments and 200 evaluations run on its Serverless Training platform. Ember-1 is available now and is described as the first in an ongoing series of specialized models from Fireworks.
Developer Iain Cambridge argues that Go's practice of importing packages by their git-hosting URL (e.g. github.com/user/repo) ties codebases to a specific provider like GitHub. He describes a company that ended up paying for GitLab, GitHub, and Azure DevOps simultaneously because switching import paths was too costly, and says he built a tool called Boneclone to replicate code across multiple git hosts. His proposed fix is to use a custom domain (e.g. go.iain.rocks/boneclone) that redirects to the actual host, so the underlying provider can be changed without altering import paths.
GoKawiil